The Importance of Doing Nothing

“Don’t underestimate the value of doing nothing ….” (from Pooh’s Little Instruction Book) Today my plan is to follow Winnie the Pooh’s advice. Today I intend to do nothing … or, at least, next to it. Mind you, I have a long to-do list for this week. But for this day, my intent is to let it all stay in the queue until tomorrow. Today I will make a point of doing nothing because from time to time nothing is an important thing to do.

My wife, Page, did this very thing yesterday. Ordinarily she is one of the busiest people I know. When certain seasons roll around, she borders on frenetic, never stopping and rarely even slowing. But yesterday she didn’t leave the house. She lounged, napped, and watched TV for a full, relaxing day. She caught up on missed episodes of a Netflix series she has been watching. Her day of doing nothing was the result of two weeks of doing a lot of somethings. Two weeks of never slowing down for a minute. We were in Florida from the end of last week till the beginning of this one. I spoke there at an ordination service for a young man entering the Presbyterian ministry. My part was the sermon. Page’s part was everything else – making the plane and auto reservations, packing for herself, packing for me, managing all of our social arrangements while we were there, and then doing it all over again for the return trip … whereupon she repeated the entire process rapidly in order to go to New York City with our older daughter and granddaughter. Our granddaughter had just turned nine. The trip was her birthday gift. So, my wife returned home from one trek in order to turn around and set out on the next one. More packing. More airports (with predictable delays resulting from a government shutdown and an imposing nor’easter). While in the city, there were trips to see Aladdin and FAO Schwartz and various kid-friendly stores and high tea at the Plaza and museum visits and shops and stores and restaurants near Time Square and taxis and crowds and hurrying and dragging luggage, etc. They did that for three exuberant and exhausting days. Yesterday, Page did nothing in order to restore and repair. Sometimes that’s what doing nothing is for.

Sometimes doing nothing is not in order to repair but rather to prepare. I have a lot on the docket this week: Teaching classes … business lunches … three sermons to write and preach … some really important and under-the-gun work for the Interfaith Broadcasting Commission and ABC TV … some financial juggling (dealing with finances is not something I enjoy – for me, doing so ranks barely ahead of things like root canals or changing a tire) … filming … preparing a day-long Retreat at Duke for which I am responsible … and somehow motivating myself to finally go back to the Y. (You say exercise isn’t work? Maybe not to you – but to me? Well, refer back to what I wrote about managing finances, dental work, and tire-changes. It’s on that list.) So, today I choose to do nothing in order to fuel myself, in order to prepare for all the somethings that await me during the rest of the week.

One of the beauties of having an unplanned day is that it allows life to surprise you. Someone calls and asks, “Are you free for lunch?” Or, you’re told about a lecture or concert at a nearby university that you had no idea was scheduled. An additional beauty of unplanned days is that they allow you to do random things just for the fun of it. You decide to go for a walk on that trail a friend told you about and you’ve been meaning to try. You take time to tour Portugal or the Galapagos Islands on YouTube. You pick up your copy of Theo of Golden from the bedstand and finally begin to read it. You pull out your brushes and paint and set up a canvas. You practice the guitar. You experiment with a new recipe you’ve been hoping to try. You arrange a Zoom call with a faraway family member or a friend you haven’t seen in much too long. You nap. You watch an old movie on TCM. Figuratively speaking, you lie down in green pastures so that your soul (your essence) can be restored. You breathe.

Today is one of those days for me. Admittedly, I am beginning it by writing a long-overdue blog. I failed to write one last week because there was so much else I had to do. So, I am writing this on my day of doing nothing. Apparently “next-to-nothing” was the better choice of phrases. That, I am convinced, will do nicely.